This is my favorite memory from Jazz Fest last Sunday, or at least the one that made me laugh out loud: It was 6:55 p.m. at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell, and the pounding rainstorm was punctuated by booms of thunder followed by jagged streaks of lightning. Soaked-to-the-bone festers poured across the muddy infield heading for the exits.

I was in the Algiers Sports Booster Club beer booth where I had spent part of the day on the line, pulling Miller Lites and a variety of other drinks out of the icy bins and handing them over to thirsty customers, and part of the day seeking shelter. A crew of longtime volunteers was reloading the last of the unsold cans and plastic bottles onto trucks next to the booth when a woman approached the deserted counter.

At that moment, I figured my feet had been wet for nearly eight hours. The rain started before I walked through the gate on Gentilly Boulevard, continued while I made my way over to Food Area 2 to buy a crawfish strudel, and kept on coming while I walked back to the packed Gospel Tent to listen to Jo "Cool" Davis and eat my only-at-Jazz-Fest treat.

During the day, part of me managed to dry out, but not my shoes. I wondered if the woman was wearing boots. I marveled at her determination.

When I mentioned her to Norman Gauthreaux, he said, "Some people just don't want to give up. That's the beauty of it."

Gauthreaux, from Marrero, is one of several longtime volunteers who run the beer booth that faces the African Marketplace at the edge of the Native American Pavilion. For years, the group was near what is now the Acura Stage, but then it split off from the Algiers Kiwanis group and took over its present booth.

Gauthreaux is the guy who came up with the sign idea. All day long, I had watched people stop, point, grab their phones and take pictures of a sign that reads: "Mom says: 'Beer is good food.'"

"The signs were kind of a fluke," he said. "Many, many years ago, a bunch of us were horsing around on a busy day, and someone started yelling out, 'Ya mama bought beer here.'"

It was such a hit he decided to make a sign: "YA MAMA bought beer here!" After that, he got other ideas for signs, including "You're looking better with every beer," and one he borrowed from Ben Franklin: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." (Some other great ones probably would be censored by my editor.)

Gauthreaux runs the line, which means he oversees the pullers and money-takers at the front counter. People work in pairs. The one grabbing the cans and bottles doesn't handle the money, or everything would quickly become a big, wet mess. Gauthreaux tries to rotate people every half hour or so, especially the cashiers.

His biggest problem is getting people off the line. "They'll say, 'I don't want to stop. I'm having too much fun,'" he said. "I have to force them to take a break. Everybody loves it here."

Wade Bolotte got Gauthreaux involved with the stand more than 30 years ago. Bolotte, who lives in Covington, started out with his dad at the Algiers Kiwanis Club tent when he was in his 20s and they both lived in Belle Chasse. In the beginning, instead of 40-pound bags of ice cubes, they worked with 300-pound blocks of ice.

"We'd have ice tongs and ice picks," he said. "We've have to drag that ice to the edge of the truck and chop it into pieces. We built our own chute to get the ice into the bins."

It was a difficult and labor-intensive process. "My dad and them were using washtubs back then," Bolotte said. "We were the first group to use aluminum flatboats to hold the beer."

View full sizeWhat you learn when you volunteer at a beer booth is that everyone is doing it because it's fun, and because they love interacting with the customers and each other, Sheila Stroup says after a day spent volunteering in the beer tent.David Grunfeld, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

After that, he dreamed up Fiberglas boxes divided into sections, and now they use several metal horse troughs he bought in Folsom. "We kept trying to come up with new ways to keep the product cold and the customers happy," he said.

Their biggest day ever was in 2001, when they were still near the Acura Stage and Dave Matthews closed out the day. People were packed in tight all the way back to the fence, and the designated runners were buying in bulk.

"We were selling 40 cases of beer every 20 minutes," Bolotte said.

"They were coming up asking for a case at a time," Gauthreaux said. "We actually sold the truck out."

One of their most memorable customers from their days near the Acura Stage was the woman who brought a children's swimming pool to the fest and came to the booth to get water to fill it up. "She put it up on the ridge, right next to where the walkway would come to our beer tent," Bolotte said. "She'd wear a bikini, and she had a little rubber duck."

"She even had a palm tree," Gauthreaux added.

This past Sunday evening, just before we packed it in, I met Bolotte's aunt and uncle, Priscilla and Buddy Faust, who have been volunteering at the booth for decades, even though they moved from Algiers to North Little Rock, in Arkansas, 19 years ago. They come back at the end of April for 12 days every year, just so they can work at Jazz Fest. They made me laugh when they got into one of those little arguments long-married couples can't resist.

"This is the worst weather we've ever had out here," Buddy Faust said. His wife shook her head and gave him a dismissive look. "I remember one year when we were in water up to here," Priscilla Faust said, motioning to her shin. "I'm talking about the lightning," he said.

The lightning was impressive, especially when we were standing in a tent looking up at all the metal poles overhead. It came late, though, much later than the afternoon rain, which started up again suddenly, drenching hordes of music lovers. One of those was a woman wearing a white linen blouse, who was standing next to our beer booth when she looked down and realized her blouse had become transparent.

Someone made a joke about a wet T-shirt contest, and then Greg LeRouge, another volunteer, took off his shirt and handed it to the grateful woman. He gave her his card, with the address of Boudreaux Elementary School in Terrytown, where he teaches, and told her she could mail it to him.

"I bet I'll get it back," he said, watching her walk away.

What you learn when you volunteer at a beer booth is that everyone is doing it because it's fun, and because they love interacting with the customers and each other.

"You meet people from all over the world," Gathreaux said.

He was excited about this weekend because his wife Peggy's sister, Shelly Gray, was coming in from San Diego to work in the booth. "She wasn't here last year because she was recovering from breast cancer," he said. "Everyone will be happy to see her back."

All the booths are run by nonprofit groups and the money they make is put back into the community. For Dennis Lore, who has worked with Bolotte and Gauthreaux for three decades, that's what it's all about.

"It's work, but it's fun, and we're raising money for kids," he said.

Lore, who lives in Algiers, is in charge of the booth, but he says that isn't important. "Everybody puts an equal hand in it to make it work," he said.

The money supports a variety of activities on the West Bank: after-school programs, a gymnastic team, kids' sports."It's everything from basketball teams to food banks," Lore said.

I was with a crew from Mary, Queen of Peace Parish in Mandeville. The church supports St. Benoit, a poor Catholic parish high in the mountains of southwest Haiti. Bolotte's wife, Muguet, another longtime volunteer at the beer booth, is co-leader of the mission team, and this year a little slice of the money will go all the way to Haiti to help children in a little village there.

Lore, who shows up before 7:30 a.m. and stays to count the inventory every night after the fest closes, doesn't mind the long days.

"When you see the looks in the kids' eyes, when you read the letters the people send, when they say, 'We couldn't do what we do without you,' that's the most gratifying part," he said. "That's what makes you come back, year after year."